Rasta Trees

This is my main "highlight" for these days, this pretty RASTA tree! (yellow red and green!) I drive past everyday on my street.

Oh, and Zen at basketball (true, and Taka at home).

The Squash Family

I have to talk about SQUASH!!! And since there is so much of it around even after Halloween, I have had a chance to take some photos of WINTER SQUASH.
GOURDS are a Squash. Japanese don't know there's a Squash FAMILY, and they usually call these KABOCHA photographed below: "pumpkins".
But here, a SIGN- in a California supermarket, Americans DO call Kabocha "KABOCHA". (Japanese think it's a Japanese word, which it could very well be).
And orange pumpkins are called PUMPKINS. They are not tasty at all. CANNED pumpkins are what make the best pumpkin pies. KABOCHA pies are heavy, really too heavy if you ask me.

Kabocha is just wonderful for dinners, or tempura, sautes, etc.
And other sorts of SQUASH.
Butternut Squash.
Acorn Squash (you know, acorn= どんぐり,  kind of shaped like the acorn nut)
And a Japanese decorated PUMPKIN!!! I saw this at a temple in Ishiki, Japan. My son Zen says he thinks it's a Buddhist chant burned? onto the pumpkin. Nice, huh?!

So that's the Autumn Squash Lesson for the week!

"Last Meal"... well for 2008

We had our last-of-the year meeting at my school with all of my staff. We took this great group photo (thank you Kahori!!) for our school's web site Prahbu is making, due in the Universe by the New Year!


So, below is one of my favorite restaurants were I could visit before I leave Japan tomorrow.
HATOYA.
A natural foods, "slow cooking" Japanese buffet.




The architecture is fantastic too. I noticed the drian, it's made from bamboo~

And check out how rainwater drains down, with another skinny piece of bamboo...

...down into this nice stone...water catcher!

And joining me for lunch, Elena and Tomi Tanaka- my good Romanian-Japanese tennis playing friends. Good friends, and good tennis players!

Moving To Tokyo

We passed Mt. Fuji on the way to moving Naomi to Tokyo.


Sheon (on the right) with her friend Mari- who let us use her CUTE van to move Naomi~




It was a TIGHT squeeze to get Naomi's things into what turned out to be a not-so-big van!


Naomi's "quaint" one room apartment for 67000yen per month. (About $670.00)


Driving back- another sweet view of Fuji-san...oh...and

from this angle~ our caffeine fix!! Thank goodness for better-than-canned-coffee in Japan!

And then, some collected photos of our cat Sylvester- for Taka and Zen, your kitty is well!!!
He makes himself comfy all over the place